C.I.A. Drones Kill Civilians in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Several missiles fired from American drone aircraft on Thursday struck a meeting of local people in northwest Pakistan who had gathered with Taliban mediators to settle a dispute over a chromite mine. The attack, a Pakistani intelligence official said, killed 26 of 32 people present, some of them Taliban fighters, but the majority elders and local people not attached to the militants.

The civilian death toll appeared to be among the worst in the scores of strikes carried out recently in Pakistan’s tribal areas by the C.I.A., which runs the drones. Local residents and media reports said as many as 40 people had been killed in all, though the intelligence official disputed that.

The Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, issued an unusual and unusually strong condemnation of the attack. “It is highly regrettable that a jirga of peaceful citizens, including elders of the area, was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life,” the statement said.

But American officials on Thursday sharply disputed Pakistan’s account of the strikes and the civilian deaths, contending that all the people killed were insurgents. “These people weren’t gathering for a bake sale,” an American official said. “They were terrorists.”

About four missiles fired from one or more drones hit the meeting, known as a jirga, of two tribes and Taliban mediators who had gathered on open ground at a market in Datta Khel, in North Waziristan, according to two residents who live nearby in Miram Shah.

The intelligence official said that of the 32 people at the meeting, 13 were Taliban fighters, 11 of whom were killed. The rest of the dead were elders and tribesmen.

“The Taliban will never gather in such a large number in broad daylight to be targeted by the drones,” according to a resident who did not want to be identified for fear of running afoul of the militants. “It has been a big mistake to target the jirga, as it will have severe consequences.”

Photo

About four missiles were reportedly fired at a market in Datta Khel.Credit
The New York Times

Recently discovered chromite mines are common in the area. To keep the mines running profitably, the Taliban — as the reigning authorities in the area — often settle disputes between tribes with competing claims and levy taxes on exports and the mine operators.

The drone strikes on Thursday were the second such barrage in two days in Datta Khel, and the sixth in the tribal areas in the past week, according to The Long War Journal, a Web site that monitors the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After a pause in drone attacks from Jan. 23 to Feb. 20, the pace of attacks has picked up again this month.

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Some analysts attributed the lull to the C.I.A.’s not wanting to upset negotiations to free Raymond A. Davis, the C.I.A. security officer who was released on Wednesday. But American intelligence officials denied that and attributed the pause in part to poor weather.

The region is under the sway of a local warlord and Taliban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who made a truce with the government as the Pakistani military pushed into South Waziristan in 2009.

But Mr. Bahadur has accepted many Taliban fighters who fled the campaign into his area, and he continues to have close ties to the Haqqani network, a militant group allied with the government and the Taliban that uses North Waziristan as its main base to launch attacks against American forces in Afghanistan.

Attacks by the American drones are immensely unpopular in Pakistan and have been a rallying point for anti-American sentiment, though in recent years they have provoked less outrage in the tribal areas, as the strikes have focused increasingly on foreign fighters loyal to Al Qaeda who have infiltrated the area, and as fewer civilians have been killed by them.

The attack on Thursday, however, threatened to turn opinion in the region against the attacks once again.

One resident said that given the large Taliban presence, average people and the militants were difficult to distinguish in the area, but that to target a jirga would lead to a backlash. “It will create resentment among the locals,” he said, “and everyone might turn into suicide bombers.”